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Black Republic of Letters

Benito Sylvain

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Welcome... ...to The Black Republic of Letters. This website and digital repository is built around La Fraternité, a Haitian newspaper that ran in Paris in the 1890s.
>>> Click here to read the paper

Walter Benjamin dubbed Paris the “capital of the nineteenth century.” For much of that century, indeed, Paris could make a claim to be the capital of the world. It was a centre of high culture, a hub for scientific discovery and collaboration, and a point of reference in philosophy, history, anthropology, and many other intellectual disciplines. Paris was also a “capital of the world” in a more prosaic sense; by the 1890s it had become the centre of one of the largest colonial empires the world has ever seen.

But in the heart of this “colonial metropolis,” there was a contradiction. A Haitian community had taken root in the city. This posed an awkward problem for proponents of French imperialism. Here was a growing community of citizens of a former French colony that had fought for its independence and proclaimed itself a Black Republic. Their very existence suggested that French domination in Africa was not inevitable or even necessary.

At the same time, however, the Haitians who came to Paris were generally the recipients of a classical liberal education that imbued them with an admiration for French culture. As a result, while they rejected any notion that Black people were inherently inferior, they often believed in the principle of French cultural superiority. By extension, while they opposed exploitation and violence in the colonies, they sometimes supported French imperialism in Africa, believing it could bring benefits to local peoples.

The conflicted attitudes of Haitians toward French colonialism and toward France in general were crystallized in the pages of the most successful Haitian newspaper in Paris, La Fraternité, which ran from 1890 to 1896. Founded by the lawyer and naval officer Benito Sylvain, La Fraternité sheds intriguing light on the lives and attitudes of Haitians in Paris in the 1890s. More broadly, its approximately 3000 articles by some 300 authors offer unique perspectives on French and global affairs in this transformational decade. (Check out Sylvain's original manifesto for the paper from its first issue).
Follow these links to explore the content of the newspaper, the people who made it, and the world they lived in:
Benito Sylvain Benito Sylvain (1868-1915) was naval officer from Port-de-Paix in northern Haiti. He settled in Paris in the 1880s and began studying law. In 1890, he founded the first Haitian newspaper in Paris, La Fraternité. He went on to be a major figure in early Pan-Africanism. In 1900, he helped organize the first Pan-African Conference in London. He visited Ethiopia multiple times beginning in 1897, making him perhaps the first Haitian to travel to Africa.

In addition to creating La Fraternité as a cultural hub in the city, he was also involved in many other community and intellectual activities in Paris. He established groups for international students, including the Black Youth Organization, and was an active member of the Ethnological Society, where he gave many public presentations on European colonialism and African cultures.
Publications by Benito Sylvain:
Du sort des indigènes dans les colonies d’exploitation. Doctoral thesis, Université de Paris, Faculté de Droit, 1901.
Articles by Benito Sylvain: